


even more fanfic for my own ocs, or: Devlyn is Homesick and Gael is Bad With People

by viscrael



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, back at it again with aus for my own characters lol, uhhh theyre just becoming friends in this one but let it be known that they Do end up as boyfs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: "I was, you know…” Devlyn turns away from him to the sink, wetting a paper towel before using it to try to scrub the jam off his pants. Still looking at his pants, he shrugs. “Hungry.”“At three in the morning,” Gael says slowly."Yeah. You…know how it is.”





	even more fanfic for my own ocs, or: Devlyn is Homesick and Gael is Bad With People

**Author's Note:**

> hmmm

Gael is a light sleeper.

Which isn’t usually a bad thing. It means he wakes up when his alarm goes off the first time so he’s never late to class (even when he wants to be), he never sleeps in too late on the weekends to the point of wasting the whole day, and when he was living at home, it meant he was always ready to get up and help his mom if something…happened. It was useful then—a survival tactic, a way to get by.

But since he’s away from home now and no longer lives in constant fear of something happening to his mother, it just means that when a glass shatters from another room at 3:30 A.M. on a Tuesday, Gael wakes up.

His dorm at Berea University is in the style of an apartment suite, meaning he lives with three other people and they all share one living room, one bathroom, and one kitchen. In this shared kitchen, one of his roommates—a short blonde guy named Devlyn, who Gael has only had minimal contact with since starting university a few months ago—is on the floor and leaning his back against a cabinet, his eyes closed. In front of him sits the cause of the noise: a shattered jar of jam, the purple substance spilled all over the wood. A lamp from the living room provides light for Gael to navigate this scene.

Gael treads quietly across the kitchen floor, unsure what to make of this. After a second of deliberating, he whispers, “You alright?”

Devlyn jumps a little at the voice, his eyes snapping open. “Ah—pardon?” he mumbles, sitting up from the cabinet as if to make it look like he hadn’t just been napping against it…or doing _something_ , at least. He seemed pretty comfortable where he was on the floor until Gael showed up; now, he uses the edge of the counter to stand up and wipes dust off his pajama pants, only to realize there’s jam splattered on the flannel. He grimaces.

“I asked if you’re alright,” Gael repeats, no longer in a whisper but still keeping his voice low. He doesn’t want to wake anyone else up. He looks at the glass on the floor, untouched. “What…happened?”

"I was, you know…” Devlyn turns away from him to the sink, wetting a paper towel before using it to try to scrub the jam off his pants. Still looking at his pants, he shrugs. “Hungry.”

“At three in the morning,” Gael says slowly.

"Yeah. You…know how it is.”

He doesn’t, but he’s not about to say that. “Right. So you…were gonna eat jam?”

“Well, I wasn’t _just_ gonna eat jam. I was going to heat up a bagel before I remembered we don’t have a toaster, so then I was gonna microwave it, but I thought the microwave would be way too loud and just wake everyone up, and plus, a microwaved bagel doesn’t taste at all like a toasted one, so I was kind of like, what’s the point?”

“Okay.”

“But then I dropped the jar on my way to put it back in the fridge. So, um. Here we are.”

“Okay,” Gael repeats. “Al…right.”

“I’m sorry about the noise.” Devlyn winces as if he can still hear the glass shattering. He turns back towards the sink and gathers a handful of paper towels.

“I wake up easily, ‘s not your fault,” Gael says, trying at some kind of comfort. Devlyn seems…sad. At least, sadder than breaking a jar warrants. The two haven’t interacted all that much in the three months since school started—their schedules aren’t compatible, and Gael spends most of his time in his room anyway—but during the brief interactions they have had, he could tell that Devlyn isn’t the kind to get discouraged by things easily. He’s perky, loud, outgoing—a morning person, even. Gael didn’t peg him as the type to cry over a small slip up like this, and yet he’d sounded so dejected during his explanation, so…just _upset_.

Gael watches Devlyn gather shards of glass and jam with the paper towels. He didn’t get enough, so Gael steps over him to the counter and grabs the whole roll off its holder.

"Here.” He crouches down, holding out the roll.

Devlyn smiles a little and takes it. “Thanks. I’m sorry again…You don’t have to stay up to help. I’ve got it.”

“I don’t mind,” Gael says, grabbing his own paper towel off the roll. He gets the spots just out of Devlyn’s reach. “I won’t be able to go back to sleep right away anyway.”

Devlyn stiffens, just a little—a tense in his shoulders. “Sorry.” Quieter this time.

“Shit. I didn’t mean that like that.”

"No, I know, it’s—I know you didn’t, but I’m still sorry.”

"You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

“I’m keeping you up.”

“Like I said,” Gael says, “I’m a really light sleeper. It doesn’t take much to wake me up. Don’t be too hard on yourself about it.”

“Right.”

They stay crouched on the floor in silence, neither sure where to go from there. Gael gets the last spot from the ground and stands up, throwing the used paper towels into the trash can under the sink. Devlyn mumbles another thanks, but it’s quiet enough that Gael isn’t sure if he’s meant to respond or not.

He stands in front of the sink, unsure. Starts to turn towards the hallway, starts to head back to his room—but he stops. Opens his mouth.

“Are you…” He stands there in the half-lit room, his arms by his sides helplessly. Devlyn looks up from the ground, raising his eyebrows to show his interest. Gael licks his lips and tries again.

“Are you okay? Like, actually okay? I know you said you were just hungry, but…” _But it doesn’t seem like that’s all it is_. He wants to tack on a polite _you can talk to me about it if you want to._ But that feels weird to say. The words stick to his mouth like peanut butter.

Devlyn holds Gael’s eyes for a second, long enough for Gael to tell that he’s thrown off guard. Maybe Gael shouldn’t have called him out. Maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut and went back to sleep, maybe he should’ve waited until the morning to ask about it, maybe Devlyn really is alright and Gael’s just reading too much into things.

This feels stupid. God. He shouldn’t have said anything.  

“I know we’re not—” Gael starts to say, but what good is that even gonna do? What, is he trying to save his skin by pointing out the obvious—that they aren’t even good friends, that there’s no point in them talking like this? What good will it do them, bringing up the elephant in the room—that they hardly know each other, that they’ve never talked before this, that they probably won’t talk after this, that they’ll pretend this didn’t happen in the morning, that this is a fleeting moment in a series of a million moments that won’t change or affect anything in the long run—what good can come of pointing this out? Of making Devlyn just as aware of this as Gael is?

So he stops there. _I know we’re not_ , and that unfinished sentence hangs in the air. Devlyn probably knows what the ending is anyway.

Maybe that does it, or maybe Devlyn was already thinking about saying something. Either way, he breaks eye contact with Gael.

“Just been feeling homesick recently I guess,” Devlyn says. He watches the tile as he speaks, like it’s something he’s embarrassed to admit. “I don’t really, uh…know anyone, and it’s pretty far from home, so.”

“Where are you from?”

“Mississippi. You?”

"Here.”

“So you still see your family pretty often then?” Devlyn says.

Gael nods. It’s specifically because he chose not to go anywhere more than an hour away from his mom for fear of his absence making her mental illnesses worse, but that’s not something he’s ever told anyone. So he just nods.

“Sounds nice,” Devlyn mumbles. It’s not a bitter comment, but it does sound a little jealous—or, not _jealous_ , per se, but…wistful. Longing.

Gael wants to ask if Devlyn is close with his family, or why he’s been having a hard time making friends when he seems so outgoing, or just _something_ to keep this conversation going. But he gets caught in the logistics of it, in the decision making required to open his mouth, and instead ends up saying nothing. He’s uncomfortably aware of how he’s standing while Devlyn sits on the tile still. In an attempt to put them on equal footing, he sits down too.

He wants to ask if Devlyn is lonely.

“I get that,” he says instead. “About being homesick.”

“Everything is so _new_ ,” Devlyn agrees.

“And…overwhelming.”

“And overwhelming.” He leans his back against the counter and looks at Gael. Maybe sitting down helped. “Are you in the same boat as me? Like, new school, new living arrangement, new people and no idea how to handle it?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know anyone that goes here?”

“Nope.”

“None of your friends from high school wanted to go somewhere in town?”

“Didn’t really have any.” The second he’s done saying it, he doesn’t know why he did. But it’s there. In the open, for them to prod or acknowledge or ignore, a pathetic admittance that no part of him would’ve given away were it not nearly four A.M.

“Oh.” A pause. “Any reason why?”

So he’s chosen to prod. Gael shrugs, at a loss for a reason. The truth is that there isn’t one; there were plenty of people at his high school that he could’ve gotten along with okay, several that tried, even a girl or two interested in something more—he just didn’t want any. People were too much. He was busy with keeping his mom from killing herself; he didn’t really have much time for maintaining relationships outside of that one. People were a burden. A luxury not worth the price or the time or the effort. So he didn’t bother.

It was only nearing his senior year that his mother’s health improved and he allowed himself room to breathe. But by then, it was too late for anything. What was the point in making friends when they would all just leave? He wasn’t going to set himself up for heartbreak.

Like he said. People were a burden.

Now that he’s started over here, with no one he knows and no premade ties, he’s still trying to decide whether or not they’re worth it. People, that is. Relationships. Some part of him wants some, but he’s gone so long without any that forming them feels like pulling teeth. Even this interaction so far has left him at a loss, reeling, drained.

But it’s kind of…nice. Which might be the weirdest part of it all.

“I didn’t really want any,” he says.

Devlyn nods, his eyes moving down from Gael’s face to the floor in between them, lingering on the spot they’d just cleaned up. He still hasn’t eaten anything, Gael realizes, but he doesn’t bring it up. It’s not the time.

“Do you want any now?” Devlyn asks. The light from the living room casts half the kitchen into deep shadows, and Devlyn has been almost swallowed by the dark, but what little light reaches him throws him under an orange haze, a half-burnt aura. It’s just because the lampshade on the light is a red, but it gives Gael the impression of sunset, or maybe sunrise, and Devlyn asks this under the artificial sunlight.

“I don’t know,” Gael confesses. He can’t tell Devlyn’s eye color from here; they just look black. “Maybe.”

“I think it’d be good. It gets lonely, staying here all day.”

He looks away—from sunlight and black eyes, to the counter, then the fridge. There’s a sound from the hallway, a door opening, and both of them turn towards the noise. The third resident of their apartment suite, Matthew, stands in the doorway, blearily squinting at them. “The fuck’re y’all up for?”

Devlyn looks panicked, like they’ve been caught doing something bad, and scrambles to get up. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “I accidentally broke a glass and—sorry if I woke you.”

Gael stands too, but Matthew doesn’t pay them much mind. He waves Devlyn off and turns back towards the hallway. “Just gotta piss.” His eloquent explanation is followed by the sound of the bathroom door opening and shutting again.

“I guess it is pretty late,” Devlyn mumbles. “We should both get back to bed probably. Sorry for waking you up again…and. Thanks for, you know. Helping clean up. And talking. It helped.”

He starts to head towards his bedroom again, but Gael’s voice stops him.

“Tomorrow,” Gael says. “Or…whenever you go to the store again. I can go with you. If you don’t want to be alone. Since…we’re out of jam. And it gets lonely staying here all day.”

It’s _so_ dumb, and Gael knows that even as the words are leaving his mouth. But Devlyn just smiles like Gael’s done something grand—or at least something more meaningful than just clumsily offering to go grocery shopping with him.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, still smiling. “That’d be good.”

As they’re heading to their separate rooms, Devlyn offers a _‘night, Gael_ , and Gael says good night back so quietly he’s not even sure Devlyn heard it. But Gael sleeps through his alarm the next morning, and when they eventually get the new jar of jam, Devlyn doesn’t drop this one.


End file.
